Genre: Romance
Length: 4100 words
Tense: past
POV: 3rd
I didn't change this one that much - only fixed an oversight in the beginning, added more flowery language, and added some scenes with the father. Length went from 2200 to 4100 words.
Today's story is just a love story.
In the summer the hills to the east glow gold. The landscape melts into the soft shimmer of dried grass waving lazily in the breeze, ripples that pass in waves toward the coast. The warmth of an afternoon sun casts everything in precious red light. It is at once as magical as fragile. The heads of wheat intertwine in the most intricate of fashions, curled around in forgotten shapes of love, pairings of hope, defiled and yet beautiful in the evening shadows. And yet the thinnest breeze threatens to topple the quivering stalks – the footprint of a single cow or man will forever crush their hopes into the dry, caked mud. Impressions are forever.
In the summer the poppies spring out of the ground like the bees out of their hives and the children out of their houses. A world once so quiet is so suddenly, vibrantly alive. The gold spreads like an infection, pervades the hills and tumbles like the surf up onto the yards of the furthest houses. It fills the air.
In California it is illegal to pick a wild poppy. Sam Collins knows this. Sam learned early on, when after six times the sun tilted an arc low to the south and back up again, when in youth the hills were a million lost kingdoms, home to castles and maidens and princes beyond imagination.
“No,” Sam’s father said, seeing the fruit of his child’s latest conquest. Sam looked up, wide blue eyes shinning gold. “Sam, put the flowers down. Those are poppies. You can’t collect those.”
They were sweaty in Sam’s hands, juices trickling out of the stems and staining soft palms.
“They’re our state flower. They’re special.”
Sam held them, feeling the gold, running fingers over soft petals.
“Put them back.”
Impossible, Sam’s heart knew. Once picked, the landscape was altered forever. Once broken, the stem ceased to carry life’s nourishment to the golden stalk. Sam didn’t understand all of this, not then. Sam knew only that picked flowers withered, and that gold was beautiful, and that princes and fairies waited in the hills.
The flowers fell to the floor, and lay golden on the emerald carpet.
Six times more the sun drifted in and out over the city, noon shadows lengthened and vanished, the world at once darkened and grew light, and the poppies withered only to spring back again. Sam Collins fell in love with Fatima Ahmadi. Sam saw Fatima through the grubby kitchen window, running through the field of poppies, a dog, golden-brown, barking beside her. She might have turned toward Sam’s house, once, and taken it in so rapidly with her joyous eyes. There were tiny flowers in her hair.
Sam imagines she was laughing. The next day Sam got to play outside, and the echoes of her laughter rang in the breeze. The memory was one of laughter. A full voice, high and jolly, giddy with love, like the lightest wind through chimes. A love of life, that is what Sam Collins felt in her image.
When the memory returns in the beautiful darkness of night, Sam can hear the dog barking for joy. They run and run and over the hill and beyond is an infinite gold field. Fatima laughs and runs with her dog, and they blend into the flowers.
Sam was a shy kid – a small kid, and lack of size so often leads to lack of courage. Dr. Collins was kind to Sam sometimes, and this filled Sam with a glowing gold pleasure. Sometimes, just after dinner, Sam and the doctor would take hands, and walk past the fence and up the hill. There was a path there, a worn and overgrown trail that led to the top of the knoll. On the crest was an oak tree, and a bench beneath it. It looked out toward the clouds that turned purple and gold as their shadows lengthened before them. Sam would settle into Father’s lap, a warm hand caressing a back cooled lightly by the evening breeze, and would fall asleep dreaming of gold. The next morning Sam would often think it a dream, but what a dream! – the most lovely sensation, like a draught of liquid light, like honey, like the lightest warm angel-cake covered in soft cream.
It was a year before Sam saw Fatima the second time. A year, but she never once left Sam’s thoughts. A year, but the image of her running never abandoned Sam’s heart.
Sam saw her from the backyard, from the edge of the green swimming-pool. She walked by on an untrod path just past the links of the fence. Sam’s heart stopped when her visage appeared in the shimmering air. Her dress was green, like the shoots of spring, like the stalks of the first wildflowers that crept up the hills to speak in rumours of the riches to come. She was alive.
Sam had fallen into the pool – or felt like it, drowned, like the water was rising and consuming the air, like the sky had fallen heavy onto light shoulders. A throat that longed to scream, but could not. Legs as frozen as the voice, body immobilized by joy and sorrow and profound confusion. Sam watched Fatima pass silently by.
That afternoon Sam’s father found his child on the carpet in the entry-room, erect before the window, watching the golden streetlamps flicker on. He gave Sam a light pat on the head.
O joyous night! – so far the best and worst of Sam’s short life. How elated by the vision, the memory, the green dress and the light touch of the breeze on the thinnest wisps of hair. How close, but the gaps between the chain-fence, but the distance of the hills, the remoteness of the bench, the oak-tree, the cars outside golden in the lamplight. but so tantalized! She was so close. Sam turned, saw through the frame of the kitchen door, over the stove and out the back window, her image beyond the fence, her reflection in the pool, the green dark in the pale but waxing moonlight. It was fact, history recorded by the memory of an unforgotten field, each footstep pressing eternity into the lay of a fertile land – she had walked by the fence of the house, walked by in a green dress, flowers in her hair. Sam had seen her eyes, and they were brown and so alive with light. Sam had smelled the air freshen as she had passed so silently by.
And Sam had so much – but it is that first taste of gold that makes the poor child of God become greedy. Sam thought about her trebly now, not once a day but every waking minute. A heart so desperately set, the reckless mind planning only the next encounter. It would not fail.
But a short time Sam had for brooding, for Fatima again passed by the gate of Sam’s house, and not two weeks later! That morning Sam’s father had poured cereal into a small porcelain bowl, and opened the back door into infinity. There were a few clouds on the horizon, the nearest short of the crest of the furthest hills, thin and yellow against the sky’s bright blue. Sam’s father had poured milk into the cereal, gently. As Sam passed through the door a light hand had touched a small shoulder, maybe by accident.
There she was, whistling lightly, and Sam could hear her voice. The dog stopped a while, and sniffed the brambles. He barked, once.
Sam’s heart pounded, and the silent body got up and slammed itself into the gate. Nothing but a stone’s throw, but Fatima walked by, passive, so silent, face ahead and eyes on the distant clouds, her dress rippling through the golden grass behind her.
Not half through August, she came by with the dog, leading him slowly through the field. He was thoughtful and composed; she was serene. She turned once, scanned the fence, past Sam, and golden eyes met the blue. She smiled briefly, and was gone.
It had to be drastic. It had to be profound. There were words for it, probably, but Sam didn’t know them. Sam heard only her laugh, never her voice. She had flowers in her hair, and a tiny green dress.
Sam had a deep love in an aching heart. It had a power, of its own, that would show her the pain, teach her the longing, and she would understand.
Sam paced through the house that night. Stepmother was crying and laughing in the bedroom, with a smack and the occasional odd noise, nothing like music. Sam made dinner and ate it alone. Thought of Fatima, always.
No words, no melody however sweet, no chime of laughter, no primordial groan rising unshaped and forgotten. Sam closed heavy eyes, and felt her soft little hand where once the day before Father’s had touched the shoulder. Her light touch was like sunlight on a winter afternoon. Sam fell asleep there, before the cold plate of day-old pizza, the flies humming sweet melodies as the memory of Fatima’s touch drove out all other thoughts, all Gods and laws and rights and wrongs until Sam forgot what was real and what was only imagined.
Sam went out to pick the poppies that night. When Sam awoke at the table the moon, almost full, was shining in through the window. A rat had stolen the pizza, and she was nibbling at it off in a shadowy corner. Sam got up, cold until the memory of Fatima’s sunlight.
Sam’s father was in the bedroom, still, Sam could hear him panting. Stepmother wouldn’t tell, if she came out and found Sam missing. Sam had a vague awareness of this fact, not quite a memory – Sam’s parents emerging one day at some time well past noon, and starting in surprise before Sam’s door, wondering. Those nights Sam’s father took Sam, alone, to the old oak tree, and would talk, sometimes. Those nights, Sam went to sleep with a hot, fuzzy feeling in the stomach, that more than made up for the lack of food those mornings so often required.
Sam’s parents had the key to the gate hanging on the wall next to the back door. Sam had never used it before. Father had forbidden it.
Sam tucked the flowers in the black fold of the red T-shirt. In the moonlight the flowers appeared white and the T-shirt as dark as the starlit sky above. Sam locked the gate, set the key back in place, and put the empty plate into the dishwasher.
That night, Sam’s father made the trip to the oak tree. Sam slept on the bench, seeing gold, awakening at dawn in the warmth of a new comforter.
The poppies were in a vase of water, nothing but a bowl stolen from the kitchen, but it would have to do. The flowers wilted. The days passed. Sam waited.
Fatima came on the last day of August. She came with her mother, holding her arms. They were talking and laughing – the words were foreign, but beautiful still. What wondrous, magical topics did their music broach? Was it life, the beautiful gold hills, was it mystery or was it love?
Sam opened the gate. Fatima turned, and those eyes, deep golden brown and shinning! Sam smiled, the poppies proffered. The mother frowned. Fatima backed up into the soft golden brush, slowly. Sam walked forward, careful but closer still, eyes glistening. There was a faint scent in the air, like fresh grass before the drying heat of summer sun.
The mother was saying something, but Sam didn’t listen. Eyes all on Fatima, waiting for another chord from that lovely voice.
“Who are you? I don’t see you at school.”
Oh, sweet attention, and not unkind. Sam almost cried. Her English was different, more beautiful than any Sam knew, not hard like Stepmother’s, but rich and fresh and full. The sun beat down between them, the long day frozen for the moment. Sam held the poppies out.
And Fatima took the wilted flowers, and she held them in those soft hands, skin the lightest shade of brown. And she smiled uncertainly, her eyes on Sam alone, reflecting the limitless joy. Sam smiled more broadly, every inch of that mystical love glowing gold from that soft grin.
But the mother intervened. Something unfamiliar, nonsense words and a look of fear. What words could come – what syllables would counter the bullets raining like gold fire onto the summer field? Fatima dropped the flowers, looked up in fear, and the glow of Sam’s smile died. She pressed up against her mother, and walked hurriedly on.
Sam did not see her again that summer. But within every moment the memory returned, the mind like the most ferocious detective, the sleuth of love. That memory nourished the yearning heart, the music of her words, the golden tones, the harmony of the unexpected juxtapositions. Her voice was low, deep, like a murmur, like a prayer to a goddess greater than Earth herself. Sam remembered those words – their cadence, their flow, their meaning within like a nugget of hold in a great, calm river. Sam dreamed in her voice.
School – she had said school. Sam had never been to school, but no one would forbid it. Sam would go. Everyone in town knew where the building was. Sam’s father would not care. Stepmother would not know. Sam would go, and she would be there, and no mother would stand in the way. A love like Sam’s knew no bounds.
Sam’s father slept late on the day Sam decided to go to school. Sam chose a morning just after one of the groaning-yelling nights. The day dawned golden in the west. The parents’ door was shut tight, and light from the keyhole glowed out into the musty hall. It was easy to slip out of the house.
It took some time to navigate the unfamiliar streets. The roads were still wet with the morning’s dew, and the sun glowed yellow across the tar. Sam strode down the middle. There was some honking and yelling, but Sam persevered, uncaring. Sam would let the people honk and yell, let them shove and scream, let them exhaust themselves of hate when all Sam’s heart could feel was love. Fatima lay at the other end.
The poppies were fresh, picked from the hills out back in the youth of the night before. Sam came during recess. She was across the field, in a darker corner of the sunlight, beautiful and alone. Sam almost froze there, afraid to go further. But the clump of poppies hung in wet hands, glowing in the last of autumn’s warm sunlight, and this resolved the wavering mind. Sam advanced.
She looked up. She took in the flowers, the smile, the love, all in one glance. And she fled.
A love like this never dies. Sam returned to school the next day, as unabashed as ever. Still, strutting down the streets’ centres, heedless of the city noise. Sam’s heart was in the six-year-old’s castles, far into the hills, shimmering in distant sunlight.
Maybe Fatima had requested a bodyguard, or warned the principle, or maybe they were having a lockdown. Maybe the police and the army and Fatima’s parents were all waiting at the entrance with an army of rabid dogs. Sam remembered only the glance and the small smile. The love would not have been stopped or dissuaded.
There was a field behind the school, and poppies grew in clusters around old fenceposts and tires and scraps of plastic. Sam collected these. A big bushel, too much for one hand, and bristling with a gorgeous gold. Sam waited, collecting, not understanding when and why the kids would come outside, but believing and knowing that they would with a depth of soul made precocious by the power of undying love. Picking flowers all the while, and not a minute was wasted, not a moment’s rest was stolen.
As the noon shadows bent ever so slightly toward Sam’s distant house, the teachers opened their doors, the kids filed out, and Sam brought the flowers into the yard.
Fatima did not run this time. She waited, smiled, and took the flowers. Curious, lovely, bouncing with life. “Who are you?” She was soaking up the warmth of that smile, convinced as she had never been before. Sam could see, and the smile brightened. “Who are you? Can you talk?”
O beautiful voice! It blocked out all thought, reduced everything into the beautiful void of thoughts unknown to words or knowledge. Sam just smiled, smiled until some teacher’s shadow stole the sunlight from the radiant face, waving a ruler, “Oy, Arab girl, you— stop picking those flowers! Didn’t I tell you – you’ve got detention now! And who is this you’re talking to? Kid, speak! Nevermind – I know you don’t go here. Scram!”
Sam backed up, until the sun once again warmed the stricken face, until the light of that furious glare faded to a speech like a faint star, all the way out of the school and into the parking lot and beyond through the field of picked poppies, but all the while the blue eyes connected with the gold, and Sam never turned away.
When Sam came through the door of the house it was well past noon, and Father was in the entry-room, reading a book. He looked up when Sam came in, seemed surprised, and gave the child a small hug. He read a few paragraphs, until Sam’s joyful eyes settled off into the distance. Sam’s father fell silent, but Sam was enraptured still, poised, silent, on the armrest, the glow of the setting sun falling through the large front window, gleaming off cars. Streetlights flickered on. Doctor Collins ordered pizza. It came, fresh and warm and with cheese dripping like molten gold, like memory, like the twinkle of Fatima’s voice.
Sam spent a week plotting, but the effort paid off, and the seed of a brilliant plan was born. Meanwhile, the school forgot. Meanwhile, the town went on through life. But the image of Fatima never abandoned Sam’s head, nor her voice the stricken ears.
It had to be bigger. That was Sam’s plan. A love like this was unyielding. It was permanent. It was inexorably right, and it would gain certain victory, if only displayed with enough conviction.
Sam confronted her again when school let out. Another bunch of poppies in sweaty palms, and another radiant smile of indefatigable conviction.
Fatima looked at the ground. She did not take the outstretched flowers.
“I’m not allowed,” she said. “We can’t – it’s wrong. Mommy said Allah says, and daddy says, and Principal Evans says.” She cried. “Go away. I can’t take your flowers. I can’t.”
Sam would not leave. Eventually Fatima’s mother came, and started yelling. She took her daughter by the hand, and spanked Sam’s rear, and carried Fatima away, and all the while Fatima was crying.
It had not been enough. Sam knew that it had not been enough. This love had no bounds, and knew no limits. If Fatima could not feel it, it was only because the love was not being expressed in its fullest. Words would not work. It needed to be a gesture, the sort of symbol that stuck in the mind, that made such a lasting impression that the world would never forget. The love was immortal, and nothing less than infinity could explain it fully.
Sam would need only more flowers, a bigger statement, a fuller design. There would be so many more poppies than could ever fit within the tiny bounds of a few hot fingers.
In the autumn mornings the field beside the school glowed dully as the sun made way through bands of pink and white and the softest gold. For a week, Sam deserted the house from sunup to sundown. For a week, Sam spent full days under a hard, waning sun, thinking only of Fatima’s voice and her laugh like chimes. For a week, Sam could see figures at distant intervals lounging in the schoolyard, any of which could have been her. For a week Sam tirelessly picked the poppies.
It was bigger than a hand, or even two. It was bigger than any jar, vase, or bowl. In the field there was a forgotten shed, a building utterly lost to any purpose, wasting away beneath a furious sun, and these pale boards Sam chose to roof the prize, this grimy floor Sam chose to decorate with the utmost revelation of boundless devotion. The golden flowerheads accumulated in the neglected barn, scattering across the floor. And still Sam picked poppies.
Then one day, after school, Sam made an approach, found Fatima alone in the gravel lot, and grabbed her arm. Her eyes lit up, but she didn’t scream or protest. She looked surprised, but perhaps pleasantly so, or maybe it was only Sam’s imagination, pasting emotion onto her face.
Sam led her to the dwindling shack.
Inside, the poppies piled up an inch above the floor. They covered the whole of the sparse ground, bunched a little in the corners. Most were wilted, but the ones in the middle were as bright and fresh as the memory of gold outside, glowing in the musty light.
Fatima cried. She gave Sam a quick hug, and cried some more. O sweet touch! Sam hardly felt her go, even as she turned and ran at a full sprint toward the blacktop. The warmth lingered just above the heart, like sunlight. There were poppies glue to the soles of her shoes, where she had been standing. Sam watched them fall off, one by one, gold peeling and fluttering as it melded into the field.
Fatima’s mother looked coldly across the field, right at Sam. Her eyes were deep and black. She scooped up her daughter. She threw Fatima into a car, and they disappeared.
No, it had not been enough. No, it would have to be bigger.
That Saturday Fatima’s mother paid the Collinses a visit. Sam was outside, by the pool, watching the autumn wind blow across the grass. The wind was changing, and a storm spoke premonitions from afar. The landscape quivered on the cusp.
“Your child must be contained!” The voice was shrill and unkind, the music harsh, the cadence broken by waves of hatred.
Sam heard Father saying, “Child – me— Sam? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t give me that, doctor. You need to contain that kid of yours! Your child has been giving my daughter flowers, doctor! Flowers!”
“Lord, I had no idea. How sweet.”
“It is not sweet!” And then Sam caught a brief snatch of that once beautiful language, but nothing like before, angry, now, and discordant. “You control your kid, doctor! You keep my daughter safe!”
“I had no idea. Lord, I never—” Father laughed, a misplaced laugh, like the ones Sam heard sometimes when caught making a dinner of leftovers. “It’s a phase. It will pass.”
Sam heard Stepmother open the door, and then cringed before the harsh yelling, even though it was directed far from the backyard, gold and dying in the restless breeze. “Vhat is zis voman doing here! No, I demant she leaf’! I vill not haf’ a Muslim stanting on my doorstep!”
Another word of angry nonsense, but Sam did not heed it. No words could express the love of poppies.
There is nothing to the east of our town for many miles. The road runs off to the south, through the hills and into Arizona. Above, there are fields and hills and then a vast desert. Sam crests the hill now, passes the bench, clambers down and up again. Golden flowers in a golden hand.
The field of poppies ran on forever. It was long and endless and gold. Sam bent down, severed a single stem, and bent up. The flower trembled in the breeze. It was soft and gold.
A few sparse clouds hung on the horizon. Between them, the sun rose, yellow in the east. The field awoke in gold.
The landscape will weather the coming storm. It has passed through many winds, rains, and fires. The old coat is shrugged off, fallen to distant memory, interfused with the soil, the wind, and the air.
When winter falls, the flowers will die. But Sam knows that the seeds of the poppies are the most persistent, that, come spring, they will rise again, glorious, like a new sun out of the stormclouds’ ashes.
Sam left the oak tree behind. To the east the poppies stretched on into the golden sun. Still the young girl bent up, down, up, still the autumn field alit.
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